Intellectual Property Rights in the Post Pandemic World

The drastic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted many of society’s systemic inequalities. This timely and prescient book explores the role that Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) played in the pandemic and argues for developing a framework of sustainability, innovation, and global justice in IPR systems, to build a more globally sustainable regime.

IPRs impact products and processes which address fundamental societal needs, yet innovation is largely incentivised by the granting of exclusive rights which can limit accessibility to new products and technologies. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, Intellectual Property Rights in the Post Pandemic World adopts a cross-disciplinary approach to analyse the relationship between IPRs, sustainability, innovation and the circular economy. Chapters examine pressing issues concerning responding to crises, inventions, the circular economy, follow-on innovation and multi-stakeholder collaboration, among others, as possible ways to finance sustainability. Throughout, this book focuses on how the IP system was challenged by the events of the pandemic, with a view to understanding how IPRs can be used to promote progressive social and sustainable innovation in the future.

This book will be beneficial for researchers in intellectual property law and development law along with practitioners and policy makers. It will also prove valuable for students with a particular interest in law, social sciences and public health.